I am a physician, and a writer, but first and foremost, I am a mother. While having our children grow up and move on is a natural progression, it somehow is not feeling so natural to me.
I was never a hovering mom
I was never one of the “powers-that-be” mothers, able to ensure my child’s role in the school play or acceptance on a team as a result of personal contacts or social status. Nor was I ever a helicopter parent, preoccupied with the minutiae of the everyday lives of my offspring.
I attended as many parent-related meetings and school performances as I was able. If I missed something, it was not lack of interest or desire for involvement but rather my rigorous work schedule that kept me away.
As a result, we ate dinner as a family every night, during which my children were subjected to painstaking interrogation regarding the details of their day’s occurrences. The fact is, however, that I was the primary breadwinner and therefore, my employment had to be a priority, leaving my husband to serve as the Friday “pizza mom,” the parent organizing “learning from our differences” and the yearbook photographer at the elementary school.
I have become a full-on electronic stalker
Thank you social media!! Now, with the ever-growing number of communication-oriented applications, as my children get older, I have discovered myriad ways to spy on them – to make up for lost time, if you will. I have become an obsessive electronic stalker. I wake up and check Snapchat to see if my son, now a college freshman, has posted any of his numerous drunken snaps to his story.
I proceed to see how many of his new snarky tweets can be found on Twitter. Instagram is the next stop on my surveillance train, where I view photographs posted by my ninth-grader, and then on to Yik Yak, where my two college student’s universities are readily accessible under the heading of “my peeks.” There I have the opportunity to learn what is “hot” at their schools, while silently playing the always-fun game – “guess which yaks were posted by my own children.” (For those unfamiliar, Yik Yak is an anonymous posting site, designed for college communities.)
Facebook is next, where I view the walls of all of my children; I note new friends (whose walls I may then also peruse), recent posts and, of course, photographs. Not surprisingly, I am not infrequently met with a look of disgust when my older daughter mentions her friend Jim, for example, and although I have never actually met either, I ask “Jim Smith or Jim Jones?,” oddly familiar with both from having previously surveyed their Facebook pages.
I may also review the Facebook pages of my daughter’s a cappella group, or my son’s fraternity, just incase a minor detail of their lives has escaped me. Finally, before I retire for the night, I examine Find My iPhone, intended to help trace a lost phone, but employed by yours truly to find comfort in the fact that my children have made it home safely yet another night.
Why, one may ask, do my children consent to what they refer to as my “creeper” behavior? The choice is not theirs. It is our house rule that when one gets Facebook, he/she must accept his/her parents as “friends.” Similarly, as we pay for the iPhones, we must be allowed to track them if lost.
Neither my husband nor I ever comment on what we learn from our voyeuristic activity; it is our hope that as long as we stay in the shadows, the multitudinous modes used to follow my children remain in their unconscious…out of sight, out of mind. Alternatively and, I suppose, preferably, as they become adults, they simply may not feel they need to maintain secrets, as they did when they were younger.
I (and others) often question why I participate in such obsessive behavior. An easy answer would be that I feel as if I have missed significant pieces of my children’s youth, for which I am now over-compensating.
My “stalkerish” behavior is driven by need to connect with my kids
It is also possible that I am overseeing, trying to make sure that they are employing good judgment and avoiding trouble. More accurately, I believe, is a need to remain connected with my children as each day they inch toward independence.
Perhaps I am trying to diminish the sadness and loss that I feel, as they become more self-sufficient and create their own autonomous worlds. There are evenings when I crave having their once tiny bodies snuggled up against me in search of comfort. I am no longer the first face they see in the morning, or the last at night; in exchange, I have made them my first and last association of the day.
And so I stalk. Snapchat. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. Yik Yak. Find my iPhone. These sites are enablers, supporting my pathology, and providing me a pseudo-sense of continued involvement in the daily lives of my children. The tiny bits of information I glean serve as few stitches in the gaping hole in my heart.
Time to go…social media awaits…
